This blog is maintained by the Wenatchee School District's Instructional Technology Department to keep staff updated on tips and techniques for navigating the digital world. The content on this website in no way represents the opinions or beliefs of WSD.

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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Google Photos is Awesome #gafe #google #edtech #ipaded

Google products are great and they are here to stay. One of my favorite tools on my iOS devices is Google Photos because it automatically backs up all of my photos and videos and stores them FOR FREE. If you are a camera snob and want the highest possible resolution possible for your photos and don't want to lose the original then every photo you back up will count against your data quota. But if you just want to take them, store them, and possibly use them later for something else then Google Photos is a great alternative to iCloud or putting them on your own external hard drive.

If you're a GAFE school and they are school photos and videos it's not a big deal since you have unlimited storage, but if it's your personal stuff then choose to backup your photos using the High Quality option in and you'll be able to back as much up as you want to a personal Google account.

Do I think Google is using my photos for some nefarious purpose? No. But are they somehow using all of the metadata from your photos to better their services and tailor offerings to you, possibly by spotting trends or locations? Most likely, but that's a chance you have to take. There is no free lunch and here's a good article about that.

In order for things to work nicely you have to have Google Drive on your device and Google Photos. In Google Drive Settings you have to have Auto-Backup turned on. Then in Google Photos you have to make sure Back Up and Sync is toggled on, then you're all set.

What caused me to write this post today was the feature Google just added which is the ability for Google Photos to automatically delete the photos from your device once they are securely backed up in the cloud, which is a great idea for those of us who don't have large capacity phones. It's a bit scary taking this step because your won't have any more photos in your Photos app but it will give you back precious space. If you want to grab a photo from Google Photos and put it back on your iOS device it's very easy to save it back into your Camera Roll by pressing the Share button and Save Image.

Another new feature is the ability to share albums with friends via SMS, email or instant message. Simply create a new album, share the URL, then friends can view anything you put in it on their own device in Google Photos or on the web.